The Hiding Place
by SamHandwich
Summary: Zukka friendship. While playing in the woods, Sokka meets a new friend. AU.


**Modern AU. Sokka and Zuko are both younger than they are in the show. Stuff like Zuko's mother dying, Sokka's mother dying, and Zuko's scar all happened prior to this. **

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The mighty warrior sprinted through the thick forest. He used his sword to cut away at all the branches that dared to get in his path, and with a simple flick of his wrist the feeble limbs would fall to the ground and he would proceed on, not even giving it a second thought. A deep, powerful chuckle bellowed from his throat, he could hear his prey- running for it's life- as he closed in on it. He knew that the whole tribe would have anough food to last for a month from this quarry. He knew that it was big, and strong, and feirce but he didn't feel one ounce of fear- he knew that he could take it down. The creature was slowing, he could hear it. The simple observation suddenly had him moving through the wood with a greater speed, excitedly waiting for the moment that he could kill the beast.

He chopped right through the middle of a bush, and stepped into a bright clearing. The dumb animal had stopped here, and was now staring up at him with big, brown, fearful eyes. The man smirked as he brought his left hand up to gently smear away any existing debris on his blade. The creature stood to his back legs, exposing his full height, hoping to in some way intimidate the man. It didn't work. With a final breath the man ran forward, screaming as he charged---

In an instant it all melted away. The brave man became nothing more than a little boy- who was now on the ground after clumsily tripping over a tree root; the vicious animal turned into a squirrel, staring strangely up at the boy, while trying to dig up a nut from the ground; and the sword fell to become a little plastic boomerang that had done almost nothing against it's foilage foes.

The boy stared at the tree root, he could've swore that it hadn't been there before, and then he looked over at the squirrel- his big game- who was idly digging for a nut and not paying him any mind. It took a moment until he realized a throbbing pain on his chin, where most of the impact of the landing had gone to. His thumb grazed along the bottom of his face, revealing a good sized scrape that was filled with blood, and dirt. "Ick," he replied as he stared at the red mess on his finger, before wiping it onto his pants. Then, he put his hand up to his chin to try and stop it from bleeding, after pulling his sleeve over his hand of course. He really wasn't sure why he had to put pressure on it- but Gran Gran had always told him too, and that was a good enough reason.

After taking care of his injured chin, Sokka looked around for his boomerang. He had obviously flug it somewhere when he fell. How he mananged to throw it so far, was a mystery to him. _Stupid cheap boomerang, doesn't even come back like it's supposed to, _he thought to himself, getting up from the ground. From there he conducted a half-hearted search, as he hoped that maybe if he lost the weapon, Gran Gran would buy him a new one, a _better_ one. One that actually came back when he threw it, and one that could actually do some real damage. He searched around the clearing, as his head was already into new adventures that he'd have with his new boomerang. Where he wouldn't have to pretend that it was a deadly weapon, because it already would be.

When he didn't find it right around, he decided to investigate some surrounding area, just in case he had managed to throw it farther away. Which of course made perfect sense to him. What he didn't know was that the boomerang was still back in the clearing, tucked nearly underneath the think branches of an overgrowing bush.

He walked in a straight line away from the spot, so if he decided to give up and go back, he'd know the way- he'd just have to go backwards. He wasn't sure how far he walked until he finally got tired. He had been too busy thinking of precious times that he'd have with his new boomerang, once he revealed to his grandmother that the old one was lost. They would scale through the forest on exciting top secret missions. The missions had to be top secret, because it anyone else found out, especially his sister Katara, then they would want to tag along. And there is nothing worse than going on a dangerous mission while having to baby-sit your little sister, who just pries in with stupid girly questions.

Although he knew that he couldn't have thrown the toy so far away, he really didn't want to walk all the way back yet, and there was still a ton of daylight left, so Sokka decided to go off to the side some and try to find some kind of log to sit on for awhile. The trees got thicker as he went along, but he figured that this way there was more of a chance that he would come along a fallen one.

He dodged in and out of chunks of massive trees, trying to be careful not to go too far away from his starting position, until he came to a spot covered over by a thick ocean of green plants. It looked like that type of poisonous plant that his teacher had told him about, poison ivy. But he wasn't afraid, he was wearing his boots today, and jeans, so the plants wouldn't be able to get to his skin. For a little while he was too busy staring at the plants, and imagining what it would be like to get sick from them, and the thought almost made him want to take off his boot and try it, just to see, but then he was enraptured by a sight in the middle of the green sea which made him completely forget his sadistic ideas. There, in the middle stood a good sized fort, made out of sticks and branches. It looked old, and beaten down, and like it could fall at any second, but to Sokka, it looked like Heaven.

Without any more thinking he dived into to calf-deep flood of poison ivy, right up to the fort. It was simple, with two walls and a roof, leaving two of the sides open, and it was beautiful. The section of the field that the camp was in had no remains of the plant in it's quarters. It was just a random piece of dirt in the middle of all the green. The walls were built up strong, with several large logs and sticks piled up on one another. The top closed to a point, but wasn't solid like the walls, because the tepeed roof was just made of large branches leaning against eachother, letting splotches of sunlight into the inside of the fort.

As striking and amazing as the outside of the building seemed to Sokka, the inside was even greater. It was made up like a little home. There was a mudded rug spread over most of the floor, accompanied by an equally muddy pillow that was propped up against the inside wall. The only other type of furnishings in there was a dulled brown picture frame that sat, cracked, next to the pillow. The frame was empty, and there was no sign that any type of picture had been in there.

Sokka crept into the place, almost afraid of running into someone, because it seemed as if someone must live there, or at least spend alot of time there, if they had a pillow. He fell to his hands and knees so he could move around better in the small area. His eyes grazed around, looking for something else. He crawled forwards, toward the pillow and frame, until he felt a sharp object peirce through his palm. With a slight squeak of pain, he lifted his hand and stared at the new cut with a grimace. It wasn't that bad, so he decided to ignore it. His eyes fell to the ground, to try and find what had cut him. It was a large shard of glass lying upright in the mud. He wondered for a moment how it got there, until he looked up and saw thousand of other pieces scattered primarily around the frame. After putting two and two together he figured that the picture frame must've really been a mirror.

After contemplating about it for awhile, Sokka then began to work on picking up all the glass from the ground. He simply figured that if he got cut by the shard, then most likely whoever this fort belonged to, would probably hurt themselves too, and anyone who could make a fort this nice, shouldn't have to get cut. It took awhile, but he finally got all of the big pieces, and most of the small ones together and piled them up nicely in the center of the broken frame.

* * *

The explorer licked his lips as he trudged on through the dense rainforest that surrounded him. It was humid, and stressful, and at the time he was out of water, but he knew that he had to keep going. It felt as if he had been out there searching for years, with nothing but fatigue to show for it. With his boomerang attached to his side the man made slow, long strides through the forest, carefully examining every new thing that came into his sight as he moved forward.

In the background he could hear the different animals squealing, and howling. It was mid-day so most of them were probably out looking for, and fighting over, food. This was not the type of treasure that the man was after, nor was it any type of wealth, he was specifically looking for the lost ruin of the people that had once roamed this reagion. He, himself, hadn't really beleived that it existed, until several years ago a friend of his came back from an expedition (such as he was on now) half crazy, telling stories of the old building that he had found. Being the skeptical sort, the man had wanted to see it for himself, but the friend couldn't give any exact details, only vague discriptions of the surrounding area. Years now had passed, but the man was sure that he could find it if it were really there, and today- today felt like a good day.

He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow as he stopped for a moment, surveying his surroundings. His backpack seemed heavier than usual, and his legs yearned for a rest, but before he could give himself enough time to think about taking a break, he went off his original course, and off to the side, just feeling compelled to go that direction. Instincts.

_Today might be the day!_ he thought to himself excitedly, as he ambled through the forest, hardly paying a fraction of the attention to terrian that he had before. The anticipation began to kill him, as he hoped that his search might finally be over. As much as he felt he might miss this wretched old jungle, the enthusiasm that came with the thought of, _sanely,_ finding a lost ruin was exhilairating. His steps began to quicken, as he began to recognize the path from his friend's discription. A large clump of trees stood in his path, looking like guards, protecting whatever was past them. The man made a quick slip passed the trees, and stared into the open area.

The scene faded away, and Sokka was now fully aware of where he was, and who he really was. Not an adventurer looking for lost ruins, but it was Sokka, looking for the fort that he had found the day before. His face beamed with delight as he ran upto it. Quickly he fell to his hands and knees to enter, then sat down once he got into the middle of the rug that was over the dirt. His gaze immediately fell to the glass that still sat inside the broken frame, next to the pillow. The shards of glass that he had left in a neat pile when he left, were now placed out evenly in the frame, as if the person who moved it had tried to put all the pieces back together.

Sokka bit his lip and shifted over to try to look into the almost complete mirror. All the pieces seemed to fit together like a puzzle, only missing small fractions of pieces that were too small to find, or fit in. He could see his reflection in the mirror, but it was distorted, and choppy from the edges of the shards. It seemed that whoever had worked on this took their time to make sure that it was right, but something in the boy made him want to pick up all the pieces and put them back into a pile again.

He fell into the urge and started, one by one, to place the parts of the mirror into a pile again.

* * *

On Fridays, Sokka was always allowed to stay out in the woods after dark, as long as he brought a flashlight. There wasn't anything dangerous in the forest, and Sokka knew the whole thing like the back of his hand. Gran Gran wasn't worried. Except she would make him bring a cell phone, so she could call him and make him come home once it got too late.

Such was the case that day, when Sokka went out into the woods right after school, accompanied by a small backpack that he kept his flashlight, phone, and food in. He knew that he would be out there all day running around, so he always packed a little more food than necessary, just in case he got really hungry.

He had gone to the fort in the woods every day for two weeks now, and every day when he would return he would find the pile of broken glass spread out neatly inside the frame. Then he would put it back into a pile, eagerly awaiting the next day when he could come back, and fix it again.

Before entering the edge of the forest, Sokka stole a smirk back towards the house, and then reality wore down into a daydream, where he mounted his horse and then stormed off into the desert.

His bag was full of all the money from the bank in the old town, and he knew that if he didn't ride fast, and ride far, the Sheriff would be on his heels in no time. He shifted the hat on his head to block more of the sun, before he dug his spurs into the side of his horse, begging it to go faster. By now he could hear the pounding of five other horses behind him in pursuit. His own horse cried out as he dug his spurs deeper into it's sides, demanding now instead of asking.

The chase continued until the cowboy reached his hide-out, and was safe from the other horsemen that had followed him after the bank robbery.

Sokka collapsed onto the makeshift bed inside the fort. He was tired from the long run, since through the whole thing he had to run himself to keep the idea alive that he was actually riding a horse. He never realized how far away this place really was from his house, until he had to run the whole thing.

It took awhile for his to regain his breath, but when he finally did he sat up and reached for his bag. He pulled out a poorly made turkey sandwich, and the phone, before setting the backpack off to the side. While muching happily on the sandwich, Sokka noticed the pile of glass was, again, not a pile, but was spread out in the frame so all the pieces fit together. Holding the food in one hand, he ran his fingers over the tops of the glass, wondering who kept fixing it, and when they came. He had been occupying the space until it was almost dark out every day, and he had never seen a soul.

After his sandwich was devoured, and the glass pieces were restacked, and Sokka yawned. Something about this place always made him tired, and the fact that he had just spent the last eight hours being bored to death at school didn't really help. He rubbed his eyes and considered going to sleep. Inwardly, he was a little afraid that if he did fall asleep he would miss the person if they happened to come. He was so curious about the stranger, that it almost kept him from the sleep. It would be such a disappointment to wake up and find the mirror pieces laid out again, with no traces left of the individual. Sokka tried to keep his mind focused, and not to drift off, but after awhile he found the world becoming fuzzy, and he dropped onto the dirty pillow beneath him, with the phone by his ear.

* * *

Sokka awoke with a start, when he heard something rustling through the ivy outside of the fort. His quickly sat up and tried to look for the intruder, but it was dark, and by the time that his eyes had adjusted it was already right outside of the wooden building. He fumbled to find his backpack and pull the flashlight out of it, but when he did, he shined it up onto the face that stood in the entrance.

The person cringed back at the light and sheilded his eyes from it. "Who goes there?" He heard the figure with the light call out. He didn't answer until his eyes became more used to the light, and he noticed that he person in the ground was another little boy, like himself.

"Er-- Zuko?" He replied after awhile of silence while he let his eyes adjust some. He still kept his hand over the left side of his face as he stared into the light. "I built this fort," he stated flatly, as if to give an explanation for something, when the other boy just stared up at him blankly he decided to add, "who are you?"

After the awkward reply from the other boy, Sokka removed his light from Zuko's face, and had it shoot upwards so that way he could see without blinding the other boy. "I'm Sokka," he replied proudly, "and I found this fort a few weeks ago. Sorry to intrude-- I guess. I never really thought that it actually belonged to someone." While he spoke, the boy made one of the strangest facial expressions that Zuko had ever seen, which almost made him laugh.

Zuko sat down underneath the roof and shrugged, "No big deal," he replied, still covering his eye with his hand, like the light was still shing at him.

Sokka cocked his head to the side, "Is the light still bothering your eyes? I- could turn it off if you want." The other boy nodded slowly, so Sokka reluctantly turned off the flash-light. "Better?"

Zuko nodded his head at first, but then he remembered that the other boy couldn't see him, so he muttered out an almost whispered, "Yes." Although neither of them could see, Zuko didn't take his hand down from his face. He waited until he was sure that his eyes had adjusted as much as they possibly could, and looked around to see how much he could make out. Not much. Satisfied with the lack of sight, he slowly moved his hand from his face, ready to shoot it back up if he heard any sort of gasping noise come from the stranger boy's direction.

The conversation wasn't very active, and Sokka was not the type of kid that liked to sit there with nothing to do. His hands fidgeted in his lap, while trying to think of something to say to the boy that he couldn't see. _'What's up with that ponytail?'_, _'What's wrong with your eyes that make them so sensitive to light?'_, _'What's your favorite color?', _were the first things that popped into his head, but they all sounded stupid. Several other phrases shot into his head, but none of them seemed to be right either. But then without thinking it just blurted out, "Are you the one who keeps fixing the mirror?" That wasn't exactly what he wanted to talk about, but it seemed like the only thing that was satisfactory at the moment.

"Are you the one that keeps messing it up?"

"Do you always come here at night?"

"Do you?"

Sokka frowned, this wasn't really going anywhere conversation wise, but that was just because the other boy seemed to be too stubborn to adequately answer any of his questions. "No, I don't. But Gran Gran let me stay out late tonight, but then I fell asleep while I was out here, until you woke me up."

"Sorry," answered Zuko apolegetically, in a low voice, "I didn't think anyone would be out here."

"It's-- uh, cool." Answered Sokka uncomfortably, not sure of what else to say.

The next few minutes passed by in silence. Zuko sat there, not sure what to say, and hoping that the other boy would think of something first, while Sokka desperately tried to come up with some sort of conversation in his head. What was up with that other boy? He woudn't answer any of Sokka's questions, and he had apologized for something that didn't really need apologizing for. Sokka wondered, if the other boy always acted like this, or if he was just being shy.

From there things didn't get any less awkward, with only a few comments coming from Sokka's direction, and then vague, one word replies from Zuko. To Sokka, the other boy seemed so strange, like he was hiding something. Every time that the moon would come out from behind the clouds, Sokka could tell that Zuko would cover the left side of his face with his hand.

It was around 10:00, and it was dark, very dark. It was also cold. The two combined made Sokka feel even more uncomfortable than he had previously, because as much as he loved the woods, he did not love it at night. He didn't like anything at night really, too dark. Although he wanted to leave, he felt that it might be a little rude to just leave the quiet boy alone, for no reason other than the fact that he was boring. So Sokka was eternally grateful when he heard the cell phone. He grabbed for his flashlight and quickly turned it on. The light immediately went on, and shined in Zuko's face, but in an instant, it was off again.

Sokka had seen it. He saw what the other boy had been hiding all night, he saw what he knew that Zuko didn't want anyone to see, he saw the huge scar that was ingrained into his face. Sokka didn't try to pretend that he hadn't seen it, but he didn't dare turn back on the flashlight, afraid that Zuko might be angry with him. The ringing of the phone continued on in the background, but neither one heard it as much now. Sokka was trying desperately to form some sort of words, and Zuko was still horrified beyond the point of even thinking of words.

It was several minutes, until one of them spoke up, "So did you uh-- see it?" Zuko asked slowly.

The voice startled Sokka, as he hadn't been expecting the other boy to speak. "Y-y-yea," he responded, trying to sound confident and as if the grotesque sight on Zuko's face hadn't completely freaked him out. Through the time, he figured that there must be something on Zuko's face that he was hiding, but he figured that it was like an ugly birthmark, or a big hairy mole or something. He certainly wasn't expecting to find a huge swollen scar that overtook the whole left side of his face.

"You can turn the light back on then, I'm kinda tired of sitting in the dark."

"S-sure," mumbled out Sokka, as he patted the ground next to him, to try and find where he had dropped the flashlight. When he finally found it, he turned it on, but was careful to never point it directly at the other boy. The awkward presence fell over Sokka again, but this time it was more intense, he felt as if anything that he could say, would be wrong. Finally, he decided that if everything he said would be wrong, why not just go for it? "Is that why you broke the mirror?" he asked, trying to sound as if he really didn't care that much.

"Yea," came the light reply from Zuko, who was more humiliated than anything.

"So how come every night you would fix it? Or... y'know, fix it as best as you could."

Zuko grimaced, "Sick sense of humor?" he responded, in a questioning tone, as if he really wasn't sure himself. "I think that mostly, when I saw the glass in a pile, I wanted to see if it would happen again. And then it did. So I figured... as long as I keep messing it up, whoever does that, will just fix it again, and put it back in the pile. I just kinda-- needed some kind of consistency, I guess."

Sokka paused for a second before answering. "Consistency?" he asked. Honestly, he had no clue what the word meant.

"Yea, consistency. Y'know like just something that is always there. Something that won't change. So I could wake up in the morning and know that there was something out there that I could always depend on."

Sokka licked his lips, "You-- you depended on me?"

Zuko shrugged, and looked at the ground, "I guess. But at the time I didn't know that it was you. I just kinda depended on the fact that I knew that the glass would be in a pile when I came back at night."

"Oh," Sokka let out softly, idly shining his light out of the fort and playing with it as the circle lit up parts of trees, "why do you come at night?" he asked simply, because that seemed to be what was summing up the thoughts that ran through his head.

As the questions persisted, Zuko slowly began warming up to the odd boy, answering more quickly and more easily, "Well, my uncle home-schools me for most of the day, and for the rest of the day, he keeps me pretty busy with doing other things, like learning how to play this strangely named horn that no one has ever heard of. So, that just leaves night. And by then I just-- I just need to get away. Be by myself, y'know? Then I run back to the house before Uncle wakes up."

"That seems pretty consistant to me." Sokka replied, his mind burning with questions about why Zuko didn't live with his mom or dad. He wanted to ask one of them, but then decided against it, because he knew how much he disliked talking about his mom.

Zuko sighed, "It gets alot more complicated than that."

Silence fell over them again. Zuko's fingers drummed against the dirty rug that he sat on, and Sokka began playing with his flashlight again. Until Sokka got an idea.

"Hold this," he commanded, shoving the flashlight over at Zuko.

"What are you doing?" Zuko questioned as he clumzily caught the light.

Sokka quickly started rolling up his pant leg, until it was right over his knee. When he was finished, he looked up at Zuko, "I got this when I was seven. My dad was home for a week, and he brought his swords with him. So while he and Gran Gran were out, I started playing with them. It was totally sweet, because I was pretending to be a kick ass general just like dad. And I was just about to kill off the _entire_ opposing army, when I did something wrong and practically sliced my leg in two. Doctor said that the scar will never heal completely, and my dad got _so_ mad when he and Gran Gran had to come home early. Said that they got called several times by concerned neighbors who concluded that I was dying from the sound of my screams," he recited, smiling almost proudly of his 'battle scar.' Secretly, he was just trying to get the other boy to open up about his scar, without being too pushy about it.

Zuko blinked, and stared at the deep line that ran up Sokka's leg. He looked at it for awhile, concentrating deeply on something. "What did your dad do you when he found out?" he asked rather sheepishly.

"Few whacks to my behind, a life-long threat to stay away from his weapons, the guilt of knowing that I nearly gave Gran Gran a heart attack," answered Sokka with a slight shrug, a little disappointed that his plan didn't work. "What do you think your dad would do?"

A bit taken back by the question, Zuko fumbled around with words until he muttered out an almost uncomprehensible, "I dunno."

"Well--" Sokka began, a little wary of what he knew was coming out of his mouth next, "what did your dad do when you got that scar?"

"I- uhh... well," Zuko stammered, unsure of how exactly to answer the question. A simple, 'nothing' would have sufficed, but he hadn't thought of that until he had already started babbling.

Much to Zuko's gratitude, Sokka's phone rang again. And after seeing that Zuko wasn't going to answer while the phone was ringing, Sokka quickly grabbed it, "Hello?............ No, I didn't hear the phone ring..............No, I don't know what time it is..............Alright, I'll be home soon.................Love you too," he responded into the phone with a deep sigh. When he hung up on his grandmother he looked over at Zuko, then began to pack his things into the backpack, "I gotta go. Gran Gran is freaking out. "

Zuko nodded, and handed the other boy the flashlight. "Bye." Sokka was begining to crawl out of the fort when Zuko stopped him, "Sokka," he started, getting the other boy's attention first, "I'm glad you found my fort." He really was.

With a grin that lit up his entire face, Sokka replied with an, "I'm glad too."

Sokka then began to stumble through the darkness, carefully stepping through the ivy that blanketed the ground. By the time that he was halfway out, he turned and pointed his light back to where Zuko was. He smiled, "See you next Friday, Zuko."

Then, Sokka darted off into the trees, to try and get home before his grandmother decided to punish him too harshly. While Zuko sat contently in the blackness, thinking over the strange time that he just had. How awkward it was, and then how nice it was, having someone to talk to, who didn't just gawk at his scar or, even worse, just avoid him all together. He also thought about the way that Sokka said his name. Sokka was the third person in his life to ever say his name like that. In that sincere, caring way, that actually made him feel wanted. That way that made him believe that Sokka would come back next Friday.

* * *

**~SamHandwich (:**


End file.
